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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26937337">Sleep Awake</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CureIcy/pseuds/CureIcy'>CureIcy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Codependency, Cuddling, Fluff and Angst, Let martin blackwood say fuck 2k20, M/M, Post-trauma burnout, Recovery, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:34:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,778</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26937337</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CureIcy/pseuds/CureIcy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A safehouse fic about trauma recovery and the many forms it takes.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>137</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sleep Awake</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title is from the song by Mother Mother</p><p>Warnings for:</p><p>Emotional self harm (freeform)</p><p>Aftermath of canon typical trauma</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Jon falls asleep on the train to Scotland, and Martin wishes he hadn’t. Now he’s all alone again. Now he’s vulnerable to so much and it’s not just the fog. But Jon is infinitely tired, and the forces battle in his mind until something snaps.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jon,” he whispers. “Jon, wake up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are we safe?” He asks urgently. “I mean—“</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh.” Now Jon is wide awake, scanning the car with all of his eyes. “No avatars. Or ordinary criminals. Two cars down is a woman who was released on bail last year for drug possession, but she’s just desperate and won’t attack unless provoked.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay.” Martin lets out a breath, slow and shaky. “Sorry for waking you. I was just— scared.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Understandable.” Jon gives his hand a quick squeeze, a sliver of his oversized cardigan pressed between their palms. “Do you want to head to the dining car together? I think a warm meal would do both of us good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They walk together, hands still clasped with Jon’s sleeve between them, and Martin scans every passenger he sees. He catches sight of himself reflected, and wonders when he became so pale, when Jon became so very tired. Their reflections in the dark glass are haunted and gaunt, and the reality is so much more delicate. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jon’s hands are full of bones. Martin rubs his thumb up and down, tracing everything he can reach, but it’s still not enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jon, they’re all looking at me,” Martin whispers, wishing he could disappear into the fog and settling for his hoodie instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let their gazes slide by. The human eye is instinctively drawn to movement, but they’ll look away once they deem you part of their surroundings.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I won’t leave you,” Jon promises. And he doesn’t.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>They finally reach the dining car, a narrow thing with only long counters and aisles and booths made for two. Martin hesitates, looking at their joined hands. They can’t sit side by side anywhere, with only singular chairs and stools.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jon. I… I don’t mean to be needy, but um. I don’t. Don’t want to let go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not being needy. Do you have any idea how touch starved I’ve been these past years?” Jon laughs, a hint of desperation creeping into his tone, and waits for Martin to sit down first, settling himself comfortably in Martin’s lap with their legs perpendicular. “How’s this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jon, how are we going to eat without spilling food on each other?” Martin says, laughing. It feels good, even though his laughter is hoarse from disuse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, that’s a problem for Future Jon and Martin to figure out,” Jon says smugly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The waitress is a tired woman with thinning hair pulled into a tight bun, and foundation two shades too dark smeared under her eyes, bruise-like circles showing through. She asks if they’re together, and nods fondly when Martin proudly announces them to be boyfriends. Both of them stare at the menu for far too long, then order far too much food, Martin stuttering over his words slightly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To her credit, she just nods, and walks away, and Jon leans his head against Martin’s shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not a bad way to wait.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jon picks a meatball crumb out of his tangled hair. “Past Jon is a bastard and I’d like to have words with him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Past Jon is </span>
  <em>
    <span>my</span>
  </em>
  <span> bastard and I love him for suggesting this,” Martin says, wrapping his arms around Jon and resting his chin on his lover’s head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jon makes a little </span>
  <em>
    <span>mrrrph</span>
  </em>
  <span> sound, like a surprised cat, and Martin nuzzles in, only lifting his head when he realizes that the waitress has already come and gone and left and set the bill on the table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah.” Jon looks up, seeing it too. “I think I left my wallet back in our luggage.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s fine,” Martin says, taking a few twenties to cover their tab and then folding his stiff leather wallet shut. “Lukas, he— once I was promoted, I guess I had everything I wanted. The others were safe, and I had all the money I needed. Never spent much of it. Might as well put it to good use.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This world hasn’t been kind to you,” Jon says softly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The world has never been kind,” Martin says bluntly. “So you know what? Fuck the world. I’m being kind anyways. I will pay it the fuck forward and no one can stop me.” Just to prove his point, he peels a couple more twenties from the stack, writes a note on a napkin for the waitress to take care of herself, and slams the pen down with a resounding crack.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jon gives him an expression that is halfway to becoming a smile. “I know. I love that about you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>They stumble through the door of Daisy’s cabin and collapse into bed. There’s only one bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wanna sleep together? No sex, just sleep,” Jon says, yawning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mm.” Martin nods, remembering what Melanie told him. He definitely thinks he could live without sex, on a steady diet of cuddles and affirmations. “Um, is it— is it okay if I get undressed here? Do you mind, or— I’m self conscious, so—“</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mahtin, you’re somft ‘n prebby,” Jon slurs, barely awake. “Listen, ‘s fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jon wriggles out of his trousers and tosses them as far as he can, not even clearing the bed. He makes an aborted attempt to kick them off, but his legs are trapped under the sheets and it doesn’t do much good. He huffs a sigh, then curls up and closes his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Martin smiles, tossing Jon’s trousers into a corner that he dedicates to laundry and depositing his own clothes there until he’s left in just a pair of boxers and an undershirt. He wants to sit down and rest, but knows if he does he won’t get up and will just fall asleep on the floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he drags his weary body into bed, crawling under the covers and instinctively starting to spoon Jon. He stops though, unsure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This okay?” Martin asks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jon makes a small noise of assent and tugs Martin’s arms further around himself and wriggles into his embrace, his warmth spreading to every part of Martin, burning him, burning away the fog and leaving open wounds to clean.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Martin has wanted something like this for so long that the reality taking place of his denial hurts like hell. But he leans into that hurt, unsure if this is just another form of self harm to feel something or a painful part of healing. What matters more, the journey or the destination?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe it’s a little bit of everything. Even if he does want the toxic influence of the Lonely burned away, even if he hates it and feels a sort of vindictive catharsis at the pain, he wants to be better. He wants it so much it aches.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Martin dreams of burning alive. Martin dreams of flying. He wakes up with the one he loves and thinks about getting a tattoo of a Phoenix, to make his skin his own.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>They settle into something like a codependent caretaking routine. Jon cooks enough for both of them and mindlessly eats so long as Martin sits across from him and does the same. Martin runs steaming baths and combs out Jon’s hair, and Jon hums half remembered childhood songs. Evenings are spent on the couch, binge watching their way through the entirety of Studio Ghibli in an attempt to feel something.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They drink in each other’s presence like they are starving, like they have spent their whole lives yearning for this. They’ve forgotten how to live without each other and are too desperate to go back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Is it healthy? Neither one of them knows. Maybe it is, comparatively. Maybe it could be. Maybe it doesn’t have to be anything. Maybe it’s just another liminal space.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jon feels safe for the first time, and it’s nothing like he’d imagined. He thought he would be free. But the weight of his past keeps him exhausted and burned out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Unbidden, the gateway in his head offers him the knowledge that low energy is common among trauma survivors because they’re no longer in survival mode.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Jon wonders what it means, to have space to process his never ending backlog of pain.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It takes a month before Jon feels safe enough to walk to the grocery store on his own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He texts Martin, questions about brands and funds and little affirmations and cute kaomojis, and runs up the path to their little cabin when he can’t stand the separation a minute longer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The anxiety he feels when they’re separated is like a physical tug, and he’s worried about what this means for them. And the worry festers all day until the evening.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it really okay to be this dependent on each other?” Jon asks, playing with Martin’s hair as they lay on the couch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is there anything else to depend on?” Martin asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm. Guess not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know. I want— I want more friends. I want a garden where we can sit and watch the bumblebees. I want to invite so many people over to sit around a bonfire that the conversation never stops.” He lets out a long sigh. “Maybe right now isn’t an okay forever, but it’s the start of a forever with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think I’d like a garden,” Jon responds softly. “And a cat. A cat that naps in the sunlight and sits on laptop keyboards and chases vermin out of the yard.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe we could upgrade our house to something with a roof where we can watch the stars, and learn all of the constellations together.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We could get one custom made,” Jon offers. “I found Elias’ hidden stash of money. We can have anything we want.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We could make a safe place. Imagine a big library with cozy armchairs.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We could get married. We could learn to live again, and then adopt kids, kids who need parents.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Our house could be a safe space.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“To pay it forward?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Martin takes Jon’s hand in his, pressing a kiss against it. “Yeah. Let’s heal, and make it better for someone else.”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jon is happy. He is safe. He is healing. It will take years, but he has all the time in the world with Martin. He doesn’t need to feed on people. He can sustain himself on old statements and regurgitated trauma. He thinks maybe, maybe he can break this addiction someday like he broke his smoking habit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But for now, he has everything he’s ever wanted.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Statement of Hazel Rutter, regarding a fire in her childhood home.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>me: sleeby jon. tired man. cute. somft. let him rest. </p><p>also me: jon is a workaholic who has spent his entire life running from trauma and now he finally has a place to rest and is running on very low energy, no i'm not projecting why on earth would you say that</p></blockquote></div></div>
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